his house. Gordon was not unpopular, and indeed some of his escapades
were really funny, as, for instance, when he cut through the string of
the chapel organ on which a weight is attached to show whether the organ
is full of air or not. The next morning in chapel the choir began but
the organ was mute. The hymn broke off into a miserable wail. The whole
service was one silent ripple of merriment. Rogers was taking the
service, and was quite at sea without the help of music. Gordon earned a
considerable measure of notoriety for the performance. On his way to the
tuck shop, Ben, the captain of the Fifteen, came up and spoke to him.

"Caruthers, I say, are you the man who made the organ mute?"

"Yes."

"By Jove, you are a sportsman."

Gordon was thus encouraged to continue on his road to buffoonery, and
when the summer term came, he found no reason to pursue any other
course. On the cricket field he could not get a run; first he hit
wildly, then he began to poke; but all without the least success. After
a few weeks he almost ceased to try, except in House matches. "The Bull"
got furious.

"Look here, Caruthers," he said, "I don't know if you are slack, or
merely incompetent. But when I see you make fifty against my house in a
Junior House match, and then play inside half-volleys on the upper, I
begin to think all you care about is your house. Don't you care for
Fernhurst, boy?"

Gordon was genuinely worried about this. He admired "the Bull"
immensely: indeed, "the Bull" was about the only person at Fernhurst
whose opinion he valued at all. He made strenuous efforts to get runs,
but it was no use. He was clean out of form. His fifty _v._ Buller's was
his only score during the season, but "the Bull" did not know this. He
thought Caruthers tried for his house and slacked with the Colts. The
climax was reached during the Milton Match. Gordon went in first with
Foster. In five minutes he and Lovelace and a man from Claremont's were
out for four runs. "The Bull" chewed grass in a far corner of the field.

And then, to crown everything, Gordon missed the easiest of catches. He
caught Lovelace's eye. It was really rather funny. The two of them burst
into sudden laughter. Lovelace was nearly doubled up. "The Bull" thought
they were laughing at him.

"I can't think what's gone wrong with Caruthers this term," he said to
Fry, the captain of the School House. "He was so promising once; he
doesn't seem to be trying this term.